The Salt Lake City Public Library, located in Utah, is a building with five floors and it is next to a plaza that basically responds to the building’s spatiality needs. Its shape is curved to the side of the plaza and straight to the back, responding perfectly to the context where it is placed.
The approach to the building is trough a plaza that is right in front of it. The plaza has many ways to guide the visitor to the building, so the approach can be perpendicular but it is mostly oblique because generally people come from the street, and this gives an effect of perspective of building.
The entrance to the building is given by a marquee, which is created by the curved volume that shapes the façade. Under this marquee there is a hidden plane that is really the access of the building.
The sequence of the path is created with many hallways (that can be seen from the outside) living from a central indoors patio, the path is long and distributes people to the library areas or rooms; this is basically the horizontal circulation, which is slow and allows the visitor to get into the different spaces but always enjoying the view of the amazing patio and the natural light that illuminates it. Also the circulation of the reading areas (away from the central patio) has a distraction that makes it slow, an enormous window to the outside. The vertical circulation is fast and concentrated in an unit that dispense people to the most important spaces, which are the hallways, that is why the library is a horizontal building.
The Salt Lake City Library is a perfect example of a horizontal building, because all its corridors, as they distribute people to the different spaces, they create a path for a slow circulation with different situations in every case. As it has corridors, it also has stairs, which are vertical by nature, but the fact that they are concentrated in a specific spot, make it fast and less important than the long hallways.
The approach to the building is trough a plaza that is right in front of it. The plaza has many ways to guide the visitor to the building, so the approach can be perpendicular but it is mostly oblique because generally people come from the street, and this gives an effect of perspective of building.
The entrance to the building is given by a marquee, which is created by the curved volume that shapes the façade. Under this marquee there is a hidden plane that is really the access of the building.
The sequence of the path is created with many hallways (that can be seen from the outside) living from a central indoors patio, the path is long and distributes people to the library areas or rooms; this is basically the horizontal circulation, which is slow and allows the visitor to get into the different spaces but always enjoying the view of the amazing patio and the natural light that illuminates it. Also the circulation of the reading areas (away from the central patio) has a distraction that makes it slow, an enormous window to the outside. The vertical circulation is fast and concentrated in an unit that dispense people to the most important spaces, which are the hallways, that is why the library is a horizontal building.
The Salt Lake City Library is a perfect example of a horizontal building, because all its corridors, as they distribute people to the different spaces, they create a path for a slow circulation with different situations in every case. As it has corridors, it also has stairs, which are vertical by nature, but the fact that they are concentrated in a specific spot, make it fast and less important than the long hallways.